The Iowa City City Council on Tuesday once again considered delaying a decision to provide a height bonus to a new luxury apartment complex project at 12 E. Court St. After hours of voiced concerns and support from Iowa City residents, the City Council voted 5-2 to approve the building becoming 15 stories — a total of 820 units in the complex.

The Daily Iowan Editorial Board sees this approval by the majority of City Council members as a mistake that shows a blatant disregard for the wishes of University of Iowa students.

Allowing a height bonus for a luxury-apartment property undermines the financial reality of lower- and middle-class UI students. Height bonuses, added density, and other housing strategies do not matter if they fail to bring down rent and create spaces in which students can adequately afford to live. We need utilitarian homes, not opulent spaces.

UI students do not have a demand for luxury apartments.

Even if these units create competition and lower overall rent prices — which there is no guarantee they will — this complex will not be affordable to the majority of the community. 

Students already face rising tuition and other educational costs. This holistic cost needs to be considered in making decisions affecting students — an argument UI Student Government has urged the state Board of Regents to consider in raising tuition in the past.

Members of the two UI student governments have raised such concerns, and the Board stands with them.

In 2016, the council adopted the Affordable Housing Action Plan. In the plan, little is said about students. When we are mentioned, the council says the following:

“We must continue to provide student housing opportunities close to campus, which will most appropriately be in the form of dense urban developments.”

For most students, these new developments approved by the city aren’t real housing opportunities; they’re unaffordable and inaccessible.

This is not solely an issue about abstract plans and housing numbers. This is about real people.

“No students have said to me, ‘I want to live there, I can afford to live there, this building is for me,’ ” UISG City Liaison Austin Wu told the councilors Tuesday night.

To their credit, not all city councilors voted in favor of this height bonus. City Councilors John Thomas and Pauline Taylor both voted no.

“I see these massive, luxury buildings as being exclusive, not inclusive to students,” Thomas said.

Taylor added, “We have heard over and over again from our students that there is a need for affordable, not luxury units.”

Unfortunately, Thomas and Taylor do not represent the majority opinion of the council. Instead, the city has decided to ignore the human needs of its large student population.

Their optimism toward the construction of this 15-story building may attempt to promote how it will benefit students by providing more housing options, as well as amenities such as study lounges and is located near campus. 

Given its close proximity to campus, the amenities offered at this development would duplicate existing campus resources such as the Main Library and Campus Recreation and Wellness Center. 

This superficial appeal to the student body shows the majority of city councilors have not considered Hawkeye voices in a project that is purportedly geared toward students.

Iowa City has failed its student population in providing affordable housing — a need that will not disappear by constructing housing with a high price tag attached.

Editorials reflect the majority opinion of the DI Editorial Board and not the opinion of the Publisher, Student Publications Inc., or the University of Iowa.

Editorial board members are Marissa Payne, Brooklyn Draisey, Elijah Helton, Becca Bright, and Jason O’Day.